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Users will be able to find documents and use interactive tools to help them better understand the approved CPS budget for fiscal year 2018. The interactive features allow users to easily click through the budget, drilling into specific budget line details or staying at a high level overview of the District.

Users can view a number of areas of the budget including revenue and debt while also looking at every CPS school and department. Each interactive report generates graphs and charts which will make budget comparisons visual and easier to understand.

Update (10/5/2017): The Fiscal Year 2018 Budget approved in August by the Board of Education provided a framework for funding the District’s operations in the 2017-18 school year. The subsequent enactment of state education funding reform (P.A. 100-465 – formerly Senate Bill 1947) provided CPS with more than $450 million in new state and local resources to support the FY18 Budget.

The initial FY18 budget also included $269 million in local resources to address the district’s budget gap. As a result of both the new funding law and management efficiencies taken by CPS, the district now requires significantly fewer resources from the city and will fully resolve the budget gap through the following steps:

$80 million in City of Chicago funding for school security and student safety costs

$55 million in debt refunding savings and purchasing savings

$4 million in additional state aid above the amount assumed in the original budget

In addition to providing for new state and local revenues, P.A. 100-465 includes a mandatory change to how CPS funds charter schools. Those changes are detailed in an updated version of Appendix B – School Funding Formulas.

This major step toward funding equity, along with additional local resources from the City of Chicago and further internal management efforts, will help CPS keep dollars in the classroom and continue the unprecedented academic gains Chicago students have achieved. Facing a deficit of more than $1.1 billion just two years ago, CPS is now on much firmer fiscal ground.

Details on the full FY2018 Amended Budget can be found in the Interactive Reports feature on the left-hand toolbar. All other budget items reflect the original Board-approved FY18 Budget.

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Every district in the State of Illinois is facing unnecessary – and unconscionable – uncertainty about how much funding they will receive from the State, thanks to Governor Rauner’s failure to sign a historical education funding reform bill.

Despite this uncertainty, CPS schools will open on time and stay open – a statement that, unfortunately, many other districts cannot make.

Indeed, 855 districts’ budgets are in limbo and many districts are in jeopardy because Governor Rauner refuses to acknowledge that his politically motivated claims about a CPS bailout are categorically false, as proven time and again by independent fact checkers.

However, Governor Rauner’s political games do not change the legal requirement for school districts to publish their budgets, even if Springfield hasn’t enacted education funding for anyone.

As a result, today we share a budget that is the framework for the district’s eventual FY18 budget. When the dust has cleared in Springfield, like many other districts, we will have a more detailed and specific budget that incorporates any changes or revisions required.

This budget framework outlines how the district will move forward to ensure that Chicago’s children can continue their blazing academic progress – including the landmark finding from UIC that every demographic group in Chicago is outperforming their peers around the state.

This budget assumes that the State will enact education funding reform along the lines of Senate Bill 1, which is the only evidence-based funding model that has won approval from the General Assembly. Under this model, 268 districts would receive more money per pupil than Chicago. CPS would receive $300 million in additional funding in FY18, despite the fact that independent fact checkers say that if Chicago students were treated equally, CPS should receive $500 million.

This budget also assumes that CPS will receive additional local resources to address its remaining budget gap. CPS is in discussions with the City of Chicago on the balance of local resources.

This budget will build on management reforms and efficiencies that have saved hundreds of millions of dollars and allowed more resources to be directed to classrooms, where they matter most. Over the past two years, this administration has reduced Central Office positions by 400, or nearly a quarter of the staff; put in place modern financial and auditing systems; and slashed the structural deficit to reduce the financial risks facing the district.

Let no one forget the single most important part of this debate: ensuring that all students have the resources to get the education they deserve. That is at the heart of this debate. And it is at the heart of all our work.

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Chicago Public Schools is the third largest school district in the United States with more than 600 schools and serves 371,000 children. Our vision is that every student in every neighborhood will be engaged in a rigorous, well-rounded instructional program and will graduate prepared for success in college, career and life.